The Shanghai-based company announced its revenue increased 53 percent, while income was up 61 percent from a year ago.

Shares in the Shanghai-based online lending platform ended down nearly 3 percent Wednesday, at $5.30 apiece, though they soared in the first hours of trading.

In a statement today, PPDAI (Paipaidai) reported a 53 percent year-over-year revenue increase to $212.7 million for the first quarter.

Net profit reached $104.8 million, or 34 cents per share, up 61 percent from a year ago.

Paipaidai highlighted its loan origination volume of $2.8 billion in the first quarter, representing an increase of 55 percent from the same period of 2018.

"The growth in loan origination volume shows that the demand for technology-driven consumer lending services remains strong," Jun Zhang, the chairman and co-chief executive officer of PPDAI, said in the report.

According to the statement, the total loan origination volume funded by institutional funding partners increased to 31 percent from 21 percent in the fourth quarter of 2018.

Feng Zhang, co-chief executive officer of PPDAI, said, "In the first quarter of 2019, we continued to diversify our funding sources and expand our base of institutional funding partners."

The number of unique borrowers was 3.2 million, up 30 percent from the 2.5 million in the first three months ended March 31, 2018, the company said.

"Looking forward, we remain confident in our ability to achieve further diversification in funding sources and drive business growth," Zhang said.